Pumpkin Spice Sunflower Cupcakes

How charming are these Sunflower Cupcakes we made? Did you know that during growth, sunflowers tilt to face the sun during the day and then stop when they start to bloom?! Isn’t that so intriguing? Sunflowers are quintessential to the month of September. We love them because they are incredibly easy to maintain and arrange and look beautiful in a vase alone. I wanted to make something in these adorable little silicone pots, so in honor of fall, and to welcome September, we made pumpkin spice Sunflower Cupcakes! The cupcakes are moist and so incredibly tasty with the perfect amount of fall spice and flavors. And you can’t go wrong with a classic buttercream frosting too! Enjoy and stay charming!

You can bake the cupcakes in the molds, but they have to rise perfectly above the pot for the flower to work. If the cupcake doesn’t rise over the top, the flower will not work at all. So if you want to make it easier, you can also bake them in cupcakes papers and then set them in the molds too. Whatever works best for you!

Add a large circle of frosting in the center of the cupcake. Just remember the center of a sunflower is going to be larger than the actual flower petals.

Dip the top of the cupcake into a bowl of brown sprinkles to create the center. You can sprinkle more in the center later, but this gives you a nice outline.

Once the frosting is made (recipe below), fit a piping bag with the leaf tip and scoop the frosting inside. The leaf tip should be held diagonal when you make a petal. Slowly push down and then slightly pull up in an upward motion. You want the flower petals to stick up, not down.

Do three layers of frosting petals until the cupcake is covered. Then switch out the tip to the green frosting and pipe some leaves on the side of the cupcake. Sprinkle more chocolate sprinkles in the center of the cupcake.